Farmville Friday

I am aware not all my readers care about Farmville. I did feel a twinge of concern at this disappointing thought. Then I remembered it's my blog, so you're stuck with my interest. This way, you can skip Fridays if you don't care and you don't have to read about it the rest of the week.

If you didn't read my post yesterday (and I posted it very late so maybe you didn't), my interview with Wordcrafter is up on The New Author's Fellowship. Feel free to cruise over there and read something that may interest you more than Farmville.

Mom has joined my list of neighbors. Like Delilah with Samson, I harried her to exhaustion. Actually, she saw a farm she liked (it looked like a farm) and it piqued her interest. She already wants a chicken coop, dairy barn and storage barn. If you notice a similarity between her farm and mine (as Elder Brother did), it's because I've been planting for her this week. We arranged that I would manage her crops because she hates following schedules, and she could manage buying, selling and everything else. We'll have a sit-down soon to decide how she wants her plots arranged and I'll follow that plan in the future. It will soon look more like her, have no fear.

My own farm has settled into a pleasant and manageable routine. I created a purple and mossy green vignette for my free black cottage that includes plum and peach trees and a broad green walk with topiaries. I plan to add a "kitchen garden" this weekend, and some hedgerows to increase the sense of English cottage garden.

I planted aloe for the first time, and I love the look of it. I will create an "alien landscape" vignette for it, and include gulmohar trees, Bov1ne calves (they're green, alien cows) and anything else that makes me think of other worlds. Maybe starfruit trees. Starfruits were used a lot in Star Trek Next Generation episodes.

I bought lemon, lime and peach trees. Some neighbors might scoff at buying trees, but I got tired of waiting for the egg-fest to end so I could get trees as gifts. The majority of my neighbors are higher levels than I am and already have more trees than they can harvest without help. It doesn't naturally occur to them that someone else might want trees.

Speaking of which, I am now Level 28. I am firmly in the middle of my neighbors. Many of them have been playing longer but with less enthusiasm. Some are newbies who may have joined because of my enthusiasm. That might be completely untrue and more than usually arrogant for me. For them, I send gifts (and the occasional game advice) that I would have found useful as I was beginning.

Anyway, the trees cost less gold than the limited-edition stone walls I stocked up on (they match my castle), and they actually produce gold every 3-5 days. They also have a more interesting shape and color than some of the other trees. I like all the trees, but I like colored trees the best: lemon, peach, plum, cherry, gulmohar. Anything non-green prior to fruiting. Except for the durian trees. Those are dark green but have an interesting shape that provides a foresty feel wherever they are planted.

Some neighbors are good neighbors who look for requests and answer them if they can. I asked for olive trees (I'm not high enough to buy them) and two people sent me some. I'm planting an olive hedgerow around my castle because olive trees are fragrant during flowering. Not in the game, of course, but real olive trees are and FV, for me, is about the illusion of what I would have if given the chance to have it.

Part of the trick of having good neighbors is being one. I spend my morning radio-listening time visiting other people's farms fertilizing their crops and feeding their chickens.

I learned last night The Flash is not the canny farmer I first thought. She doesn't publish her rewards (which keeps neighbors from benefiting), she doesn't fertilize other people's farms (which keeps neighbors from benefiting) and she doesn't return thank-you gifts (which keeps neighbors from benefiting) all because it takes too long. In short, she's a terrible neighbor. I warned you, my darling.

However, we had a session of mutual farming last night where I showed her how to collect bonuses and which rewards to publish and which to ignore, so maybe once she's enjoyed the benefits of practicing good neighbor-ly habits, she'll continue them. Now that Aunt Robynn knows the score, the tempo is going to change. Ooh, there's that control freak peeking out again. Down, demon!

April Fool's was a fun day on the farm. For 24 hours, you could plant nachos. They started as a spilled bag of chips and turned into a massive plate of nachos with all the trimmings. It was hilarious. I took pictures so my non-farming FB friends could see them. Oh, and you could toilet paper a neighbor's barn. That was fun. Reminded me of high school. We toilet-papered someone's house every weekend. We always went back in the morning to help clean up, though.

You know, I take more pictures of my farm than I've ever taken of anything else. I wonder why that is.

I planned poorly with my crops yesterday. It occurred to me after I'd planted that I could have had a field of blooming daffodils for Easter Sunday. Now I'll have half a field. Oh well.

So, that's probably enough for today. I have to leave early to take my car to the shop, so I must harvest and plant earlier than usual.

The pumpkins are ready, and daffodils won't plant themselves, you know.